Work-related injuries and illnesses cause pain, suffering and economic loss for workers, lost productivity and high workers' compensation costs for employers, and increased prices for consumers. In 1970, the Occupational Safety and Health Act was enacted to help alleviate these problems. The purpose of that Federal law (Public Law 91-596), is ". . . to assure so far as possible every working man and woman in the Nation safe and healthful working conditions." Since 1970, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), U.S. Department of Labor, has assumed primary responsibility for administering this Federal law.
To date, OSHA, other government agencies and private firms have not been able to identify individual high hazard employers and target scarce resources to help prevent injuries and illnesses. As a result, the objective of reducing occupational injuries and illnesses in this country has not begun to be met. In fact, the incidence of serious work-related injuries and illnesses has been increasing. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), Department of Labor, estimates that more than 8 in every 100 workers suffer a job-related injury or illness every year. In 1993, over 6.7 million injuries and illnesses were recorded for workers in the private sector. Of these work-related injuries and illnesses, nearly 3.0 million, about one-half, were serious enough to lose time from work or experience restricted work activity or both. About 60 million workdays were lost due to work-related injuries in 1992, or an equivalent of 240,000 work years. In addition, over 368,000 new cases of work-related illnesses were reported in 1992. Workers with occupational illnesses lost about 5 million days from work in 1992.
Because of the increasing trends in injury and illness rates in the Nation, both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives in their fiscal 1994 appropriation bills called on the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) to report back to them about the adequacy of data for targeting inspections to individual establishments. That DOL report transmitted by Secretary of Labor Robert Reich on Jul. 27, 1994 and titled "The Availability and Use of Data on Occupational Injuries and Illnesses," discusses the obstacles to obtaining rankings of individually identified, high hazard employers. Page 5 of that report details problems with using data from this nation's prime collector of injuries and illnesses statistics, DOL's own Bureau of Labor Statistics. It states as follows: "Besides the technical questions that arise from using individual responses to a sample survey to target enforcement, the BLS occupational injury/illness statistical program does not provide OSHA with a basis for ranking the relative safety of establishments. As with any sample survey, the design of the BLS annual survey selects only a small proportion of the employers OSHA needs to rank establishments. While the BLS survey responses are aggregated into reliable statistical estimates for the entire population, meaningful establishment rankings are not possible because the site specific experience of the much larger group of employers who were not selected for the survey remains unknown. Moreover, BLS, along with other Federal statistical agencies, is committed to maintaining the confidentiality of all employers, establishments, and individuals who respond to its statistical programs. Thus, individually identifiable data on employers, workers, and establishments are not available from any BLS program." The present invention differs from these prior attempts by including the universe rather than a sample of a given population of employers; producing high hazard rankings by individual employers rather than by industry or other summary groupings; and does not have the confidentiality restrictions.
OSHA and states, by targeting their inspection and consultation efforts, taking into account their available finite resources and the hazardousness of employers, can become more effective in reducing this nation's injury and illness record. Yet today no adequate listing or ranking of high hazard employers exists for their use. The solution to this long standing problem is contained in the invention process described herein.
Some states, like Oregon and Washington, have attempted to solve the problem of identifying high hazard employers. They have attempted to use injury and illness claims data from workers' compensation files and employment data from the state Unemployment Insurance files to derive a frequency rate for ranking high hazard employers. These states have used rather simplistic approaches and have only been able to identify the frequency of injuries and illnesses. Moreover, these states have encountered problems with matching employer files, using different employer definitions, and using different employer identifiers. Most all other states lack the needed data to develop such rankings of high hazard employers. Generally, the employment or other basis for a rate is not available. Even if all data components are available somewhere within the state government, then many times, (as in the case cited earlier of OSHA's inability to use the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data), these states' safety and health agencies are not able to develop such ranking information because of confidentiality restrictions mandated by state statute (privacy laws), agency policy, or both. The present invention uses data from a single employer file; derives an employment number for each employer; is not restricted by confidentiality requirements; and includes many other important factors besides frequency to rank the hazardousness of employers.
Other states, like Maine, have attempted to identify high hazard employers by using only the number of workers' compensation claims. These states rank employers with the most claims as the most hazardous. Only large firms are identified as hazardous in these states. The present invention uses hazard rating values rather than an absolute number of claims. Small firms and medium size firms, as well as large firms, are included. A new method is herein described whereby the much needed firm employment is estimated; this allows for the development of claims frequency rates, and resource efficiency factors rather than just absolute numbers as in the Maine method. In addition, many other factors, besides the number of claims, are considered that provide a fairer, more comprehensive, and more precise identification of hazardous employers. For most all states and the Federal Government, where it had previously been impossible to develop usable firm rates for rankings of high hazard employers, it is now possible.
Many private firms have established safety and health consulting business practices. The service these firms provide to industry is their safety and health expertise in identifying hazards in the workplace and eliminating them. These private consulting firms have attempted to identify hazardous employers by knowledge of the local community, hazardous industry data and requests for service. The present invention differs in that it includes a comprehensive and scientific method for identifying and ranking individual employers, rather than only being able to identify hazardous industries; does not require local knowledge; and can be used to target employers most in need of consulting assistance.
Whatever the precise merits, features and advantages of the above cited references, none of them achieves or fulfills the purpose of identifying individual employers and ranking them by the degree of hazardousness in their work environments, as does the present invention.